


Work In Progress

by Lara



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Happy Ending, Jealousy, One-Sided Attraction, Pining, Pre-Relationship, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-02
Updated: 2015-10-02
Packaged: 2018-04-24 11:58:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4918642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lara/pseuds/Lara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>These days, sitting in the common room watching Steve Rogers flirt his way into Sharon Carter's pant suit, the possibility of her vomiting blood all over Stark's fancy couches became more and more real. </p>
<p>Darcy could already taste the blood at the back of her throat. </p>
<p>Darcy was working on that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Work In Progress

**Author's Note:**

> This is unbetaed. And I'm trash so there are bound to be mistakes especially since I wrote this within one hour. This is fueled by my own feelings towards someone in my life. Only I'm way meaner than Darcy. I'm working on that.

There is nothing worse in Darcy Lewis' opinion than girls who are jealous. No, Darcy Lewis never succumbed to the green monster like her sisters do, like her best friend from High School used to do. Darcy Lewis is a strong independent woman. Who doesn't feel insecure. 

Especially not about keeping a man, or even worse seeing a man she likes with another woman. She was cool as a cucumber. 

A cool girl. 

Yeah...so maybe she'd sort of bought into that whole ‘I drink beer, I watch baseball and I like dogs. Also I'm super uncomplicated. Yes, dear go out with your friends to the strip club, bring back some wings for me will you?’ Thing. 

Darcy was working on that. 

 

Clara, her little sister, had always said she was just swallowing her rage and emotions until one day she'd spew blood everywhere from a stomach ulcer.  
An anger ulcer. Raging in the pits of her stomach, making her feel nauseous and lightheaded.

All and all she was the most miserable person on this planet whenever she felt just a little jealous. That's why she usually ignored her feelings until they'd go away. Healthy stuff, the stuff psychologists and psychiatrists always recommended. 

But these days, sitting in the common room watching Steve Rogers flirt his way into Sharon Carter's pant suit, the possibility of her vomiting blood all over Stark's fancy couches becomes more and more real. Darcy could already taste the blood at the back of her throat. 

To be honest, Darcy was ashamed of her own jealousy, her crush on the Captain didn't entitle her to anything. But watching them made her eyes go from blue to vibrant green in seconds. 

She really tried hard not to think about them. Avoided them whenever she could. She didn't even follow Rogers on any of his social media. She tried to win the distance that would keep her from having jealous thoughts, mean thoughts even about Sharon Carter. 

Sharon was beautiful, accomplished, capable, tall, blonde, had an amazing smile and if Darcy went that way she would've been all over her. 

But as a matter of fact all thoughts of Sharon Carter were tinted in a slight green sheen. Darcy hated herself for thinking that way. She kept picking at all of Sharon's flaws. Everything Sharon did was twisted in her head until Sharon was ugly and mean too. Just like that Sharon was finally on Darcy’s level. 

The worst thing, the thing that absolutely hurt the most was that they were perfectly perfect for each other. With their tall blond capabilities. 

And it made Darcy cry. Alone, in her bed at night of course.  
Watching Sharon and Steve (even their stupid names matched) be familiar with each other, kiss each other made Darcy want to cry right then and there. 

She didn't want them to break up, at least the rational part of her brain didn't, they were a great match. 

The non rational part of her brain though? 

Not so much. 

That one behaved like it was possessed and it couldn't wait for them to break up so she could snatch him away. Which was ridiculous in it's own right. Darcy Lewis was many things, she was also definitely aware of her limitations. 

She was certainly not Steve Roger's type. 

Physically? Yes, the late great Peggy Carter too had been a busty brunette, but personally? 

Not at all. 

They were good as friends, they worked as friends. Even if, even when Darcy wanted nothing more than to jump his bones, even though her heart ached every time he was kind and funny. 

She wasn't either of the Carter girls. And she would never be. 

Which hurt more than she wanted to think about. Darcy watched Steve rub his neck as Sharon cracked a whispered, undoubtedly dirty, joke. Darcy turned around a stubborn look on her face. 

She was not going to wallow. 

 

For a few weeks, her avoidance was successful. She saw Steve a handful of times and Sharon even less. And not once together. An accomplishment in her book. Her jealousy had had time to calm down a little. Instead a little voice in her head had started acting up. At first it had been the usual stuff. 'You're not his type' or 'you're better off as friends' but then it had slowly turned into 'you'll never find anyone like Steve' and sometimes - late at night- those turned into 'no one is going to love you'. 

Which admittedly and non-surprisingly sounded just like her mom. During the day, when she was working in the labs, those thoughts were easy to shake. 

But at night...At night, they became intense and unbearable, so every time she did see Steve it felt like getting punched. 

In the gut. 

Or, in the heart. 

Darcy was working on that too.

 

She had looked forward to the party for months now. She had cajoled Tony into buying her the dress for it, hadn't been too hard after she had promised to occupy Dum-E and U the next time Tony needed his creations to not interfere with his experiments.

"You clean up nice, Lewis." Tony said handing her a glass of champagne, he gave her once over looking impressed with her choice. It was probably the only once over of his life that wasn't lewd. 

They had struck up a sort of precarious friendship that had quickly turned into a odd father-daughter relationship. 

"I have good taste." He congratulated himself and knocked his flute gently against hers. She smiled at him.

"Thanks, but I doubt it you would have set foot into a Goodwill." 

His cocky smile dropped instantly. "I gave you a credit card so you could buy a dress in an actual store." 

In all fairness she had bought a dress in an actual store, just because he didn't consider Goodwill anything other than an organization to donate money to he shouldn't mock her amazing twenty three dollar dress. "You bought the shoes too." She says pointing to her red velvet heels.

"Tell me nobody else wore these before you." She had honest to god, tried to buy a fancy dress from a fancy store but the moment she had set foot in the store all eyes had been on her and it had instantly felt like they knew she had no money.

She had dodged the over attentive sales assistants, who she thought probably suspected she was thief, had browsed for a few minutes and then had staged her tactical retreat, down a few blocks to the nearest Goodwill. 

"Lewis." Tony warned, glaring at the shoes as if they were the next big baddie. Thank God for Pepper, the strawberry blonde goddess came sweeping to her rescue. 

"Tony leave Darcy alone. Steve and Sharon are here, come say hi." Darcy followed the direction Pepper had pointed to and promptly wished she hadn't. Steve looked dashing in his black suit, he had been growing a beard. He looked like her lumberjacked wet dream. Her knees felt weak. 

And the feeling in her stomach closed up her throat immediately. Darcy pried her eyes off of Steve and stared at Sharon instead, to Darcy's immense satisfaction she hadn't taken the time to dress up, she was wearing a simple black skirt and a white blouse. 

Darcy instantly rejoiced. And felt terrible seconds after. 

She was the first to preach about being nice to other girls. The first to go against girl on girl hate. Sharon really brought out the worst in her. Well, Darcy brought the worst out in Darcy. Sharon had nothing to do with it. 

She needed a drink. A whole bottle of something.

It took about five glasses of champagne and one look at Steve and Sharon making out on the couch by the panorama window and Darcy nearly dissolved into blubbering mess of tears right then and there. 

She shot out of her seat and stumbled past Barton and Barnes towards the hallway. 

And then she dissolved into a blubbering mess. Hot tears spilled over and ran down her face. She couldn't see anything anymore, blindly she reached out till she found the wall and then she slid down to her knees. Even through her hazy alcohol induced state she knew she was being dramatic. 

Maybe this is catharsis? 

Whatever it is, it's grade-a pathetic. This definitely sent her back through to time right back into puberty. If Darcy concentrated hard enough she could feel the pimples growing and hormones spiking.

A sob grew in her throat and escaped. She knew she needed to get out of the way before anyone found her. And the whole mental breakdown became even more embarrassing. 

Before she could pull herself together and off the floor and towards her Hoboken apartment, footsteps rounded the corner. She began furiously wiping at her smudged make-up to no use. 

"What's wrong, Darcy?" Oh no. 

The universe was truly against her. Above her stood Steve, all broad shouldered in his concerned glory. Fuck her life. She began crying anew. 

"I-I have a migraine." She chokes out. Oh man. She couldn't have come up with something more plausible. Like a pet died, or a relative died or was sick or...or- anything but that. Anything but a migraine.

"Oh." Steve said dumbly, undoubtedly thinking about Sharon never crying about something as little as a migraine. "I'll go get you a glass of water." He offered and off he was down the hallway. It would be easier to get over this crush if he wasn't so goddamned nice all the time. 

It felt like hours before she heard footsteps again. After five minutes she contemplated if Steve had forgotten her, he wasn't the type to leave someone hanging though. 

She should've hightailed it out of the tower but Steve had been so kind and she didn't want him to come back to her having vanished. Also Darcy was a masochist. She had managed to stop crying at least. She was sitting with her eyes closed an actual headache building behind her eyes. Steve shuffled for a moment before sitting down next to her. 

"Here you go, doll." Darcy's eyes grew wide, that wasn't Steve's voice but Bucky's. Bucky held out a Pellegrino bottle for her. 

"You're not Steve." She said sounding more accusing then she meant to. She would've flinched at herself if her composure and dignity hadn't left her years ago. 

"Steve isn't so good with the crying dames." Ha! Better as friends, just like she had said. Darcy Lewis cried all the time and plenty. She took the bottle from him and cracked it open. 

"Thanks." She said between gulps of water.

"Migraine, huh?" Please, god swallow me up right now. Bucky was far too perceptive, he probably knew all about her crush. With all the spies in the building everyone knew. 

"I don't want to talk about it." She whimpered and turned her face into his shoulder and closed her eyes again, hiding her quickly reddening cheeks. 

"Fair enough." He wrapped his metal arm around her shoulders and pulled her in close. 

 

The next time she saw Steve and Sharon it was easier. She still was crushing but Bucky by her side made it easier and she felt grounded and less jealous. 

Her little green monster still gnawed at her from the inside but with less hunger and more like he was snacking.

Steve and Sharon (Cogers? Rarter? Staron? Shete?) sat on one side of the island eating grilled cheese while Bucky and Darcy were prepping a cherry pie. She watched them from the corner of her eye as they held hands and leaned over a tablet, doing something heroic. 

But Bucky kept her occupied. Her metal-armed kleenex had become her new best friend, ever since she had misused and abused his white shirt at Stark's shinding. He knew all about her crush but he never brought it up, he seemed to understand what she was going through. 

It was good enough for Darcy, he kept her mind of all things jealousy and in turn she taught him every single one of her recipes. And pop-culture. Though he was far less enthusiastic about that since she started introducing him to the darker sides of TV. Mainly, reality TV seemed to bother him. 

Too bad that not everyone could keep up with the Kardashians. 

"We need this rolled out." She instructed slapping the dough ball onto the island in front of Sharon. Sharon startled at the unexpected noise. She hadn't meant to do it that hard. Bucky shoved her lightly with a crooked smirk when Sharon returned to her Stark tablet. Darcy took a deep breath and steeled herself.

"Your hair looks awesome, Sharon." Sharon blinked at her surprised before flashing her a smile. "Thanks, Darcy." 

She still wasn't a hundred percent genuine but this was the first step towards penance. Even if most of the stuff had been mental she knew she hadn't been exactly welcoming. Darcy had an easy friendship with almost everyone in the tower, Sharon was the odd one out, the shunned one. Sharon probably didn't even know why Darcy was behaving like a total bitch. 

Suddenly something hard hit her in the back of the head. She turned around to find Bucky standing behind her grinning broadly holding the bowl with the cherry pits. "Keep that up and I'll use the rolling pin on you!" 

"I'd love to see that." He grinned and chucked another pit her way. She ducked and it flew straight over her head and bounced off of Steve's forehead. 

And for the first time in ages when she saw Steve laugh she didn't feel completely immobilized by her crush. And she didn't feel jealousy overtaking her every thought when Sharon keeled over before pressing a kiss to his red mark. 

Well, it was still there but it was ebbing away. 

Cool as a cucumber.

Yeah...It was work in progress. But she was getting there.

**Author's Note:**

> #hashtagrelatable


End file.
